Ryk McIntyre
The Last Human on Earth
We all finally gathered together, on the day, when it happened. If there was a signal, it would be hard to say exactly what it was. Other than, to an individual, we all suddenly let go of hungry as the first thing in our limited imaginations, and instead, replaced it with go there until you get here. Or something like that, but wordless, and animating the whole lot of us to gather, from all over the world, where ever there might be. I may have gotten the exact wording confused, but things like that are common when you're dead.
So we all started to go there, each from what ever point on the compass we shambled from, lurching as if by migration ley-lines to a specific longitude/latitude. Or maybe it was hive-mind. But it felt more like memory. though how do you remember, in death, a place you never went to when you were alive? Me, I had never been outside New York City, but like everyone else postmortem, I knew this gathering place. I just... knew.
Some of us moved faster than others. Some were missing pieces, but pulled and struggled and slithered on what remained. Some were so old, they fell to pieces, but another would stop, pick up as much of them as they could, and carried them along. It was important we all be there. Even the younger, more extreme young zombies, but don't get me started on them. I could talk forever about the ridiculous way they race around, even climbing up walls like spiders. But that wasn't most of us. We were classics, and we moved like slow and unstoppable tide.
Still, how ever we could get there, we all were moving in that direction.
When you are dead, you can walk anywhere. When we reached oceans they become just another long distance to haul our bones. Along the way, we woke sailors from their wrecks and they followed, too. It was a long walk to the where this gathering point was, and we were all so hungry. Sure, animals will do in a pinch, but they are always unsatisfying. Anything with a brain'll do, or so it's said, but there is something about the way more developed brains generate Fear in so many more varieties, not just fight or flight. That makes them taste better, I don't why. I hate the taste of fish. It's so very... underdeveloped... At least I could take grim amusement from watching all the young, hip zombies confounded by the depth and the pressure of the sea. Those of us that moved slowly simply moved slow. Those of us that tried to dart about like lunatic insects were ridiculous, and highly amusing to watch. I got my fun where I could, I guess.
The invisible and soundless beacon drew us on and we finally emerged from the waves on another shore. Some of us crossed deserts, some threaded their way through jungles, some of us walked through where there had been wars, and whatever burnt and blasted things remained there joined us. Many of us walked through great cities, and marveled at the things we never imagined while alive. And we all kept moving towards the place we could see clearly in what remained of our heads.
Here is the thing that doesn't make sense, and I've had some time to think about this afterwards. Somehow we knew, even before it came down to the last, we knew that people, the ones that still need to breathe, were becoming scarce. I guess, we never stopped eating to think about the numbers: any one of us bites someone (and we did this every day, most of us, especially in the beginning) and then they turn and bite someone, and they bite, and then those bite and pretty soon, we are expanding exponentially, while our food source doesn't. It just shrinks, and humans, the living I mean, they're so easy to break in so many ways. They just don't last like we do. We were gonna run out, someday. And we didn't need calendars to tell us that that Some Day had arrived.
But what doesn't make sense is, we all started walking towards the gathering place some time ago. A few of us were even lucky enough to find a human here and there and quench that hunger that drives us, at least for a little while. So there were at least some number of breathers still alive, before we all came to this place in Africa (I finally recognized the place from a documentary I saw once, or maybe a book I read) called, get this, "the Cradle of Humanity." I guess they found some fossils there that prove people go back about three-and-a-half million years. But they weren't going to see tomorrow, and when I say they, I mean the one, lone, scared but exhausted human, standing the center of us. Somehow, and this is the part I still think about, we all timed our travels (that took months, years for some) to get here right at the final act of living, breathing, Humankind.
Some just wanted to eat and other said no. So we argued among ourselves the way the dead do. We stood and glared at each other (those of us that still had eyes, or sockets at least) and the rest just gnashed what teeth and jaws remaining to them. In the end, I guess we mirrored humanity in stubborn stupidity, in that we spent so much time arguing, we never noticed that the last human had simply died of fright at the size of the zombie nation that surrounded them. Or maybe it killed itself somehow (I say "it", I don't even remember now whether it was male or female). People are good at that. I remember, killing themselves. I think that was where we came in. But now, our numbers had clearly dwindled, if you think how many people there were in the world when this all began. Still, a crowd of a few thousand, even tens of thousands looks big to one scared human. But it isn't that big when you realize that was all of us there were left.
We're not immortal or indestructible either. A lot of us took one in the brain in the early days when humans still had fight in them, and hope. But some of us never escaped well-made coffins and howl there still. Some of us were torn to pieces in the ocean by sharks, because sharks will try to eat anything. As far as I know, none of them became zombie sharks, but that's not really here or there.
The rest of us froze in places where winter was bad, and were snapped to kindling by storms, others just dried out under the sun until they were imprisoned by dehydrated sinews of their own bodies, never to move again, waiting for their brains to finally stop. And the rest of us knew, even though we survived, that things were never going to be the same, for as long as they would last for us, given we no longer had anything to eat. Soon, we would be gone, too.
And all the stars in the Heavens will still shine. The Earth will still turn. It will be better this way.
We all finally gathered together, on the day, when it happened. If there was a signal, it would be hard to say exactly what it was. Other than, to an individual, we all suddenly let go of hungry as the first thing in our limited imaginations, and instead, replaced it with go there until you get here. Or something like that, but wordless, and animating the whole lot of us to gather, from all over the world, where ever there might be. I may have gotten the exact wording confused, but things like that are common when you're dead.
So we all started to go there, each from what ever point on the compass we shambled from, lurching as if by migration ley-lines to a specific longitude/latitude. Or maybe it was hive-mind. But it felt more like memory. though how do you remember, in death, a place you never went to when you were alive? Me, I had never been outside New York City, but like everyone else postmortem, I knew this gathering place. I just... knew.
Some of us moved faster than others. Some were missing pieces, but pulled and struggled and slithered on what remained. Some were so old, they fell to pieces, but another would stop, pick up as much of them as they could, and carried them along. It was important we all be there. Even the younger, more extreme young zombies, but don't get me started on them. I could talk forever about the ridiculous way they race around, even climbing up walls like spiders. But that wasn't most of us. We were classics, and we moved like slow and unstoppable tide.
Still, how ever we could get there, we all were moving in that direction.
When you are dead, you can walk anywhere. When we reached oceans they become just another long distance to haul our bones. Along the way, we woke sailors from their wrecks and they followed, too. It was a long walk to the where this gathering point was, and we were all so hungry. Sure, animals will do in a pinch, but they are always unsatisfying. Anything with a brain'll do, or so it's said, but there is something about the way more developed brains generate Fear in so many more varieties, not just fight or flight. That makes them taste better, I don't why. I hate the taste of fish. It's so very... underdeveloped... At least I could take grim amusement from watching all the young, hip zombies confounded by the depth and the pressure of the sea. Those of us that moved slowly simply moved slow. Those of us that tried to dart about like lunatic insects were ridiculous, and highly amusing to watch. I got my fun where I could, I guess.
The invisible and soundless beacon drew us on and we finally emerged from the waves on another shore. Some of us crossed deserts, some threaded their way through jungles, some of us walked through where there had been wars, and whatever burnt and blasted things remained there joined us. Many of us walked through great cities, and marveled at the things we never imagined while alive. And we all kept moving towards the place we could see clearly in what remained of our heads.
Here is the thing that doesn't make sense, and I've had some time to think about this afterwards. Somehow we knew, even before it came down to the last, we knew that people, the ones that still need to breathe, were becoming scarce. I guess, we never stopped eating to think about the numbers: any one of us bites someone (and we did this every day, most of us, especially in the beginning) and then they turn and bite someone, and they bite, and then those bite and pretty soon, we are expanding exponentially, while our food source doesn't. It just shrinks, and humans, the living I mean, they're so easy to break in so many ways. They just don't last like we do. We were gonna run out, someday. And we didn't need calendars to tell us that that Some Day had arrived.
But what doesn't make sense is, we all started walking towards the gathering place some time ago. A few of us were even lucky enough to find a human here and there and quench that hunger that drives us, at least for a little while. So there were at least some number of breathers still alive, before we all came to this place in Africa (I finally recognized the place from a documentary I saw once, or maybe a book I read) called, get this, "the Cradle of Humanity." I guess they found some fossils there that prove people go back about three-and-a-half million years. But they weren't going to see tomorrow, and when I say they, I mean the one, lone, scared but exhausted human, standing the center of us. Somehow, and this is the part I still think about, we all timed our travels (that took months, years for some) to get here right at the final act of living, breathing, Humankind.
Some just wanted to eat and other said no. So we argued among ourselves the way the dead do. We stood and glared at each other (those of us that still had eyes, or sockets at least) and the rest just gnashed what teeth and jaws remaining to them. In the end, I guess we mirrored humanity in stubborn stupidity, in that we spent so much time arguing, we never noticed that the last human had simply died of fright at the size of the zombie nation that surrounded them. Or maybe it killed itself somehow (I say "it", I don't even remember now whether it was male or female). People are good at that. I remember, killing themselves. I think that was where we came in. But now, our numbers had clearly dwindled, if you think how many people there were in the world when this all began. Still, a crowd of a few thousand, even tens of thousands looks big to one scared human. But it isn't that big when you realize that was all of us there were left.
We're not immortal or indestructible either. A lot of us took one in the brain in the early days when humans still had fight in them, and hope. But some of us never escaped well-made coffins and howl there still. Some of us were torn to pieces in the ocean by sharks, because sharks will try to eat anything. As far as I know, none of them became zombie sharks, but that's not really here or there.
The rest of us froze in places where winter was bad, and were snapped to kindling by storms, others just dried out under the sun until they were imprisoned by dehydrated sinews of their own bodies, never to move again, waiting for their brains to finally stop. And the rest of us knew, even though we survived, that things were never going to be the same, for as long as they would last for us, given we no longer had anything to eat. Soon, we would be gone, too.
And all the stars in the Heavens will still shine. The Earth will still turn. It will be better this way.
Ryk McIntyre has been a legendary presence on the New England poetry scene for decades. Which is to say, he is rarely photographed and not everyone is convinced he really exists. He has toured extensively, and been published in various journals, anthologies and magazines across the ages. He doesn’t photograph well and avoids direct sunlight as much as possible.